Steven Johnson: Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of InnovationReally intrigued by the title. Fabulously diverse in examples. If you ever felt like a square in round world, this book will make you sing for joy because that's what life is about--growing, moving, evolving.... The book is much stronger for being in Science section and not restricted to business innovation alone.

Jun 30, 2011

"When Rowling does what she does best, it's the closest thing to magic available in our mundane, Mugglish world. And I say that as both a Harry Potter fan and the father of a Harry Potter fan." - "Is Pottermore Good for Harry?", TIME, June 23, 2011

Sadly the reporter admits they don't perceive miracle and magic abounding. But hey I've been there too.

Even as recently as a few months ago, the world seemed confining, and confounding. Now, suspending belief and lies, a boundless radiance is present.

BTW, that purpose I'd nearly forgotten... it's called ENCHANTMENT.

Let me back up a bit, okay way back.

When I was starting a freelance consulting business in 1995, I went it alone for a year (this was before the virtual watercooler now known as Twitter existed). It's not that I absolutely needed peers, but there was an undeniable desire to have playmates to chat and bounce ideas with that might understand what I was navigating too.

Most of my buddies had jobs, and couldn't relate (nor care) to the uncertainty and other rewards and challenges of free agents. Also, I was starting an online magazine at the time (long gone now, it was called AwesomeWomen.net) and hired a part-time researcher/writer to help me with that side-gig too. To make a long story short, that's how I became actively engaged with the local Women's Business Center and National Association for Women Business Owners (NAWBO).

For many years, those were my peers--we had diverse businesses, yet fundamentally a common journey that isn't necessarily a mainstream journey forged deep bonds between us.

Another time I created a peer network rather than seeking a ready-made group. About two to three months after surviving one of the largest natural disasters of the last century-- Indian Ocean tsunami, I roped my housemates at the time into co-creating a weekly group that met at our home on Sunday evenings called Daring to Live an Authentic Life. Among the messages (many others as well--outside scope of this post) that I grokked through that experience was one that insisted, "Don't settle." Steve Jobs summed up that message a few months after Daring to Live an Authentic Life group sprouted:

"Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." - Steve Jobs, commencment speech at Stanford University, June 14, 2005

At that time, I was yearning to have some mutual support in applying spiritual principles and simply being true to myself in a world that seemed (to my perception at that moment in personal history) not to necessarily reinforce a natural, unique direction of being.

It's not Hogswarts--as that'd be a bit more of the old-school-lecture do-as-I-say-model. Hogswarts however does provide, in my opinion, a way for Harry to have even more fun (and mischief) with playmates Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger than he may have had in a hermitage. My intent is to lean more towards King Arthur's Roundtable where we're surrounded with fellow peers on a common journey of self-mastery (and I'll dare say self-wizardry).

Blogs, as most websites do, tend (certainly not universal, just tendency) to invite skimming more than diving. Also blogs, being public websites available at a click of a mouse to anyone that can rustle time on a computer anywhere anytime in the world, tend to invite passersby through on their way to another destination. I know loads of people alight on Crossroads Dispatches looking for an image of stardust chess, faerie truffles, a diagram of a medieval alchemical crucibles, an essay on an essayist, or an article on Google's internal product development process--and then, poof! move along on their merry way.

Alas, as much as I'd adore public blogs (as a format), they don't match my wish for depth, intimacy, delving, diving--they aren't designed as a prime vehicle for a circle, or a roundtable, of explorers delving into the magical realms of infinite existence itself.

Encanto's intention is to be a vital, lived, engaged experience rather than a passive, drive-through experience. This Friday, July 1 midnight ends the introductory pricing ($25/month) to the Encanto circle. Then an entirely new chapter in delving into the magic of life begins ($58/month unless I hear a whisper from a griffin that it ought be otherwise). The number of magicians at any one time enchanting and engaging is capped at 25 to sustain its intimate Roundtable look and feel (there may be ebb-and-flow and circulation of members).

As always, the public blog shall continue its own unique expression, and I am honored that you are part of that journey as well, whether this is a stepping-stone from a Google search or you are a long-time confidant.

Jun 28, 2011

{Below's a repost of a May 25, 2007 article I wrote that captures my zeitgeist since many folks may be new here; and I haven't touched on this much in past two years. I am in a very optimistic, visionary, yinyang encompassing Renassiance frame of mood that provokes 'social art'--&/+ the kind of art that bursts forth dynamic cultures and civilizations. Enjoy, Evelyn---}

When I first got to the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, and saw that there were no full-on grocery stores, that's when I first got a clue that the trip was going to be a tad more expensive than I'd anticipated.

That old flashback anxiety came up the first day or two when I went out to eat, paid the bill and then flash forwarded into the future calculating in my head the total spreadsheet amount for food expenditures for the two months (plus in actuality).

It didn't take me very long to get into the New Orleans' laidback vibe, however, and feel that somehow everything was going to be alright.

Small example. I rarely needed to take cab rides while in New Orleans. I would simply decide where I wanted to go - be it in Tulane or Magazine Street or the Mapleleaf Bar - and voila! someone would inevitably offer me a ride - typically without me asking.

The first time, I'd only been in town for two days so I took a cab to the Jung society meeting on the Enuma Elish myth in uptown. There I met Dan and Diane - literally right next door neighbors to where I was staying - voila! a ride home materialized.

I had no idea when I got there how I'd get home (it was a church tucked off the beaten path; a cab would definitely need to be called out.) Yet I did know I needed to be at that particular meeting. That was the step. When you listen and hear, "Go." You don't balk, "But that's all the way in uptown. It'll cost $25 roundtrip. And...."

Don't give up even before you start. You move in the direction you're being pulled despite appearances that you ought to wait until all the ducks are in the row, and you've lined a ride home, and the stock market is, and the...

I don't wait for evidence to present itself that I'm on the right path. Evidence comes, if it does at all, in hindsight. You move because the wind blows you that way.

"The only thing that will move you (and I don't mean to be too poetic about this) is the same thing that moves a leaf hanging from a tree. It's simply because the breeze blows that way. So you always know what to do: The breeze blows that way, and that's the way you go. You don't ask questions anymore. You don't evaluate why the breeze is blowing that way because you know that you don't know why. And you know you can't know why. There's never been a leaf anywhere that knows why the wind blows that way on that day at that moment. That breeze changes the orientation of your life, moment to moment to moment, simply because that's the way life's moving. And when you're living in your awakened self you have no argument with the way it's moving because it is the same as you are." - Adyashanti

Actually, that's the way I met my friend Wyatt. I didn't know how I was going to get home that day I met him busking on University Avenue either. That was our opening exhange. He asked for money. I walked over, lowered my voice and explained that I'd give him something but I didn't have enough for bus fare home myself. (Tended to go through these feast and famine cycles in the past.) I only know that something was compelling me to go to Palo Alto that day. I followed that whim. Of course, I ended up getting a ride home from my friend that works at IDEO... yet I didn't know that apriori.

I found that New Orleanians were generous, sharing and less of a "me, mine, and my" frame of mind than I'm used to observing in the US.

It's there it all dawned on me that money would end up becoming extraneous.

I want to play in that realm. Live by that belief that we can take care of each other.

To me, art isn't to be merely visited, watched...it's more like a space you inhabit, you absorb, you be. Doubt I've said this, but I'm into social art. Not social as in we're going to exchange comments, trackbacks, and I'll add you to my buddy list.

Social as in art that creates civilizations...like this...

You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world

I witnessed so many acts of collectiveness in Nola, ah, where to begin. Okay, here's one I witnessed: One evening I run into a cool pianist I've met at Mimi's upstairs. He is giving away a newly inherited piano to a fellow pianist sitting there at the counter. They'd met the week earlier at Mimi's. It's an extra piano, and she doesn't own one.

That logic doesn't resonate with everyone. Why not put the piano on Craigslist? Why not eBay? Why not donate it to the ___. Because he met whom it was intended for.

UPDATE: As soon as I hit publish, I get this about circles of sharing and generosity entrepreneurs in my inbox:

"Imagine walking down the street and a woman comes up to you and says, 'Hello. I have an offering for you.' Puzzled, you look up and in your palm falls a $7500 check. 'Why me?' 'Serendipity,' she says. 'What should I do with it?' 'Whatever you want.' 'How did you decide on $7500?' 'We sat in a circle of silence, wrote down a number on a piece of paper and it averaged out to $7500.' And then she walks away. Now that's a pretty ridiculous story, but that's what has brought us together here." - "A Radical Experiment in Generosity Launches," CharityFocus.com

Jun 20, 2011

"In that wonderful story [Parsifal, Galahad and the Holy Grail myths], when any knight sees the trail of another, thinks he's getting there, and starts to follow the other's track, he goes astray entirely." - Joseph Campbell

Mind you, I already know the story of Edison, and the Wright Brothers, and the ascent of Everest pretty well. What I found intriguing was how Bob Proctor pointed out the fact that when they were in the midst of it, what they were attempting was not known. In fact, the refrain Bob repeated, "They didn't know how."

In the short six-minute video, Bob Proctor shows a slide of Edmund Hillary and Tenzay Norgay, the first documented (never know if some pilgrim didn't get there first but made no fuss) ascent of Mt. Everest.

"When they started they did not know how. They did not know how to get to the top of the mountain."

"Keep in mind that Edmund Hilary was an ordinary beekeeper in Auckland, New Zealand. Where did he ever get the idea he could go to the top of Everest?"

"It was believed that anyone that tried to get to the top would die." (And there are folks encased in ice up there.) Bob shares that he watched a TV interview with a Canadian woman that had just come down Everest, and was asked by reporters: "How does it feel now that you conquered the mountain?"

The woman climber's response: "We didn't conquer the mountain. That mountain can't be conquered. We conquered the limitations within ourselves."

Bob goes on to have us imagine Thomas Edison attempting to tell some of his friends, his wife or even his relatives about his "experiments.

"They would have thought he was right out of his mind."

Edison did not know how, he just knew he was going to do it. In another slide, Bob Proctor shares this tidbit:

"Thomas Edison's teachers told him he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive." As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times." Edison replied, "I didn't fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.""

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin, The Royal Society of London, June 1985

I agree with Bob, that most people are locked into the idea of HOW (and then don't budge). When, to me, what matters is WHAT? or WHY? In the video, he asks to inquire: "WHAT DO I REALLY WANT? Just make a decision on what it is you want."

"The way to maintain one's connetion to the wild is to ask yourself what it is that you want." - Clarissa Pinkola Estes in the Intuition chapter, Women Who Run With Wolves

"You won't know how until after you do it," Bob continues.

So what does that mean you don't know how? It means you're on the edge of Unknown, hurtling toward another eternal horizon, and there aren't going to be a lot of folks that grok why you do what you do. After all, you are not them, and vice versa. You're on your path, unfolding your myth. No one else knows how for you.

Whatever skills and strategies acquired through status quo thinking and cultural conditioning fail to work in the domain of the soul's journey. Yet--something--something natural and spontaneous will take the place of automatically reacting to others out of habit.

If you do know how, it's probably too cozy for your soul to stretch to its own boundarylessness. So I agree with Joseph Campbell, "If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's." As well as with Almine, "Let not the confusion that briefly figures in and out of your minds disconcert you. It is the releasing of the old; the releasing of the patterns and spiderwebs of existence."

In the midst of it all, it can feel lonely, or frustrating if you are seeking external kudos or support (it's not necessary if you can see yourself supported by and as Infinity and self-reference your Inner Ally). But like I said, just in case, consider me an ally, too.

This is a good a time as any to delve at least through the surface of what I see as a potential Renaissance birthing (potential, as in it's a matter of desire--not imposed).

This deserves more consideration, but here's a start.

WHAT WE BUILD, rather than WHAT WE BUY

"This is not a community that values good looks, visible wealth or having a hot body. Those are not the ways that they distinguish high status from low status," [Alice] Marwick said. "Technology millionaires don't hobnob with celebrities or buy a fancy car. They travel to Thailand or they fund an incubator. These things are just as expensive, but that's the classic hacker ethos that prizes the mind, not materials."

"I've been playing a game where each day I pretend I am given a written check of a different denomination--for instance, day 1 I receive a $1000 check. Day 2 I receive a $2000 check, and so on---thus day 20 would be $20,000 and day 52 would be $52,000. It is a tougher game to play than I had imagined.

Most days (I'm only on day 10) I use the money to do some sort of public art installation, publish a journal (with artwork from a collaborator I have in mind), or arrange a retreat, conference or Salon with other folks, or otherwise spend it on things that aren't for me, alone. This is partly due to the fact that I'm a minimalist, and partly because I enjoy producing things much much more than consuming things.

I've made a lot of money in my yuppie past, and found that stuff just never did it for me; back then I was into experiences--that meant marathan-running or eating out at new restaurants or traveling to exotic countries or having front-row seats to the Pioneer Theatre. (Fine, marathon-running is NOT a spectator sport but generally much of what I did for pastimes was to pass time.)

Nowadays experiences don't appeal to me that are sit-down, sightsee, spectator-based either; I prefer to produce, participate, play. I'll be in the parade banging the tambourine along with the others, not watch from the sidelines." - Evelyn Rodriguez

In the LA Times story, Alice Murdock asserts that hacker culture is a masculine culture. I like my culture hackeresque... that's indie, that's self-organizing decentralized bubbling up grassroots rather than hierachical top-down gate-keepered, that's freedom of expression, an expressed culture (yeah, we were that idealistic in 1997)-------------------->

Recently, venture capitalist Fred Wilson--and, note he's based in New York City--mused about the next 'Net thing (in other words, Web 1.0 was about investing in building block infrastructure, Web 2.0 is about applications) and bouncing off Carlotta Perez' work he forecasts a coming cultural revolution. I would like to agree with him. (What I mean by that is I doubt it's a sure thing unless we want it to be so.)

All I know is, count me in for a cultural Renaissance (adore that word a bit more than revolution).

One reason I left Silicon Valley is I didn't feel an epicurean sensitivity to simple refinement and beauty I desired. I suppose the pendulum swung wee too far yang ever since they decimated the plum orchards for those semiconductor labs.

Looking back, I believe an awakened sublime and sensuous cultivation for the yin was nurtured by savoring Italy three times in a single year (while consulting to Telecom Italia's Internet portal division, Virgilio, and to the ISP division). I pitched them social networking (using Ryze and Friendster as examples--there were no others yet), and they pitched me conviviality (including face-to-face old-fashioned rapport and authentic networking).

I enjoyed picking ripe tomatoes out in the family I was staying with's garden (outside Turin with Monte Bianco a stone's throw away), drinking handmade vino from their own vineyard, sharing a potluck al fresco feast with friends, and returning to my dreamtime in their mulberry treehouse. Bested any five-star experience I've ever had.

Italian imagination and midsummer night festivity influenced the first Salon I hosted August 2006 to mix and mingle media, food, techie, and arts folks.

Then, after a while all fancy restaurants had this sense of "been there, done that," (plus the sense of doing for me rather than with me). At least for me, I'd come to the point where I wasn't nurtured by consumption. (You may think yin is passive, but it's also the creative numinous, the fertile imagination painting visions in the aether--otherwise known as ideas, etc.) There was something more engaging and enthralling to participating with than being pampered to.

I concur with Andrea:

"One of my favourite movie scenes has always been the alfresco birthday dinner party that Juliette Binoche’s character throws Armande (Judi Dench) in the fairytale-like film,Chocolat. The casual backyard setting, in a quaint French village, features a rough-around-the-edges wire framed canopy, folding wood chairs and a long, linen-covered harvest table. Completely proletariat but utterly timeless and stylish in a way that the French pull off better than anyone. This kind of comfortable and chic setting inspires easy conversation, drinking copious amounts of red wine and gathering with friends well past sunset — and ends with empty bottles, burned-down candles, live music and dancing into the wee hours. My kind of dinner party!" - Andrea Mills, Canadian House and Home

THE WILL TO DO IT

Nowadays, perhaps because I've lived in five cities since I left San Jose, CA in 2008, I am more inspired by an encompassing, planetary vision of Renaissance, rather pinning it to a specific place be it New York City or London or name-your-tangible-patch-of-land.

Renaissance... it's little like the etherealness of the Internet (which isn't tied to geography) and the etherealness of Shambhala, "a borderless kingdom of meditation practitioners committed to realizing enlightenment and social harmony through daily life." And mostly like the way James Carse describes the attitude of horizons (see Bonus below).

The other day I was thinking how much I enjoyed the Foothill Writers Conference when I participated in 2006, and how much my writing flourished from my attendance there that summer, and checked online to see if I could make it an excuse for visiting the Valley this summer. Lo, and behold, I find that it was cancelled in 2010 due to lack of sponsorship, and that may be its fate this year too. In Los Altos, where the Foothill College, the hosts of the writing workshop, is located: "According to a 2007 estimate, the median household income was $158,745, and the median income for a family was $185,848." Having been there, it's true that the Valley peninsula is a prosperous place (by banking standards) so much so that the lame economy excuse doesn't really explain why arts are left to languish.

"our kids attend schools where art is required every day. as it should be" -- Fred Wilson in the comments to his own post, "To Science and Art"

When John F. Kennedy asked Dr. Wernher von Braun what would it take to build and send a rocket ship to the moon, he replied, "The will to do it."

"From what I have seen in the history of the arts in New York, when money is poured on something it flowers. With money there has to be a flow. I had a beautiful experience of a man with money when I was a trustee of the Bollinger Foundation, which was founded by Paul Mellon, an enormously wealthy man. He and his wife had been in analysis with Carl Jung when the war came and they had to leave Switzerland. They asked Jung what they could give him in the way of a gift to express their gratitude for what he had done. He suggested they establish a foundation for the interpretation and study of symbols. That's whay they did, and it is an example of a lot of money being put to the right use. The influence of that Bollinger Series on on the literature and science of America has been enormous.

. . . When you put the money in the wrong place, it can be devastating. Where is the money [and its activating of priorities by what it attends to] going and where is it coming from in the economy of a nation, the economy of a city? You can turn a flowering culture into a desiccating culture just by wrong channeling. What factor in your own consciousness are you going to favor in the spending of the money? For instance, I have a seventy-five-dollar book coming out. Some people will say that is expensive, but those same people will spend one-hundred-and-fifty dollars to have dinner in a restaurant with another couple. So, is the money going up here in your mind or is it going down there in your stomach?" - Joseph Campbell (recommend the longer excerpt of Campbell's money musings in, "Money is a Congealed Energy and Releasing it Releases Life Possibilities")

YIN YANG OF CREATIVE CULTURE AND INNOVATION

"Science and art are seen as two very distinct endeavors and I suppose they are. But I see science and art as the yin yang of creative culture and innovation." - Fred Wilson, "To Science and Art"

This is not meant to be a treastise on art, nor a plea for art. Rather liken it to seeding the inquiry that maybe art is different. Different from technology (and I'm a computer engineering grad, so I'm not making that up), as different as day is from night or female from male or inside from outside. Different. Not implying better or worse. Not hierarchy; rather, harmony. Complementary contraries. Technology often strives for functionality. Not so art: its purpose is, well, different (almost pointless in that it can often precipitate in a primordial pre-thought). Since it's fresh, and resonant, for me, quoting Campbell from last night's book again:

"What I understand art to be, then, is the revealing power of maya: the production in music, in dance, in the visual arts, and in literature of such "divinely superfluous beauty," of objects for esthetic arrest which are of no practical use, but which open up dimensions within. And the projecting power of maya, on the other hand, I take to be desire and loathing, which link you in phenomenal discourse to the object as object. It is as clear and clean as that." - Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living, edited by Diane K. Osbon

I don't exactly advocate swinging the pendulum from yang to yin, from active to receptive, from external to internal. The equinimity of equilibrium might be nice for a change (who knows, I've never seen it fully yet).

In Sufi master and author Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee's essay, Invoking the World Soul, quoted below (I've enjoyed hearing him speak several times when I lived in the Bay Area), he is sharing Platonic ideals (and overall newfound appreciation for philosophies and arts of antiquity--Greek and Egyptian that the printing press made easier to share) embraced by many Renaissance philosophers and artists that diversified and expanded some of the pendulum extremes of the prior Ages and of the times (i.e. the Inquisition was still pretty robust, ask Pico della Mirandola):

"So one can go back, for example, to Plato who understood the cosmos is a single living creature, which contains all living creatures within it. So from the very origins of our Western civilization there is this deep understanding that the Earth is a living spiritual being.

. . . .In the Renaissance, the world soul animated and formed nature according to divine proportions. And once again the garden of the world was enchanted with magical power and transcendent meaning — implicit in every part of nature. This was this wonderful relationship in the Renaissance between the imagination and the creative principle in life. And there was this extraordinary flowering that really came from the divine feminine within the imagination, within life, and it was celebrated. Once again the garden of the soul was here in this world. It wasn’t just after you died in heaven, in paradise; it was here in the art that the Renaissance masters created. And this is why, for some of us, the Renaissance touches the soul now so deeply and why there has been a revival of understanding of what happened in the Renaissance. " - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee,Invoking the World Soul

This is corroborated in several Wikipedia entries (my better resources are in storage) of the greatest influencers of Renaissance look and feel, for instance:

Marsilio Ficino "espousing the Neoplatonist view of the world's ensoulment and its integration with the human soul. "[...] There will be some men or other, superstitious and blind, who see life plain in even the lowest animals and the meanest plants, but do not see life in the heavens or the world [...] Now if those little men grant life to the smallest particles of the world, what folly! what envy! neither to know that the Whole, in which 'we live and move and have our being,' is itself alive nor to wish this to be so."" - Wikipedia

I'm coming full circle to the title of the collection of Joseph Campbell writings I am reading, I mean the title itself is worthy of reflection:

Reflections on the ART OF LIVING.

And, considering the kind of culture we are creating is the one we are devoting ourselves to day by day minute by minute, not the culture 'they' are creating as they includes us (remember, we're hackers).

And, I come back to Italian ethos too again,

"I thought -- and now I know -- that Italians claim more time for their lives." - Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

p.s. This post was setting a bit of context-setting, however, I'd prefer future ones on new Renaissance to be more off-the-cuff, spontaneous and daring in a improvisational sense so it leans more towards the future than past history (while planted in present, and presence too). If there are any excerpts or article links--they'll be in the footnotes, at the end.

BONUS 2: Really worth reading James Carse on his refreshing view of the Renaissance and metaphorically referring to cultures as horizons: "There is nothing in the horizon itself, however, that limits vision, for the horizon opens onto all that lies beyond itself." An aside, Flickr founding team was very influenced by Infinite and Finite Games, too. Kevin Kelly, in What Technology Wants, praised it for "alter[ing] my thinking about life, the universe, and everything."

"Who lives horizontally is never somewhere, but always in passage. [Note to ourself: Thus, the crossroads...always a new crossroad. Always liminal, infinitely unfolding at the edge...]

Since culture is horizontal it is not constrained by time or space.

To the degree that the Renaissance was a true culture it has not ended. Anyone may enter into its mode of renewing vision. This does not mean that we repeat what was done. To enter a culture is not to do what others do, but to do whatever one does with the others." - James Carse

Jun 16, 2011

"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

After watching this video "The Dare of DIY" by Tara Gentile, on how the handmade, DIY, artsy, "why not?" culture is akin to entrepreurship and tying the two into a tapestry, I'm adding Tara Gentile into the ally category, too.

Tara shares that a common thread among the handmade, DIY, indie set is the burning question:

Can it be done?

The business of sharing your stuff out in the wide world can also be looked at in the same adventurous spirit of the creative act. Tara, quoting landscape designer Steve Gerischer from the book, Made by Hand, shares, "Look at it as an opportunity to try stuff out, "Ask yourself, "What do I get to do?" not "What do I have to do?""

Another gem from Tara's video presentation at the Etsy Labs gathering: "You have no preconceived notions about how something is going to turn out, you have no specific expectations, you have no instructions, you have no role models,--you just kind of give it a go. That's really the crux of experimenting."

“I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances." - Brian Tracy

Platitudes are so easy to bandy about: Take more chances! Be bolder! Do what's never been done before! Exclamation points galore.

Can be a wee bit harder to act on, be, and embody.

If I were trying to, let's say, start a dry-cleaning business I believe I'd have many more allies. Yet try to do something you're not too sure anyone's done before (and definitely not that crystal-clear and known to yourself, either), and as far as I've seen allies are far and few between. Truth be told, I get more flak than support. So I tend to keep mum. Yet I'm not sure staying tight-lipped and isolated is the best remedy for creative folks, either.

So let's consider each other allies for a moment.

And you can consider this blog to be your friend. You'll have to participate to get the full benefit of alliance. (I'm not a mind-reader. So by participate, we can begin by use of your blog with links here to add your two cents--I'll find the clews, use the comments below, or subscribe to Encanto... I see Skype group calls in the future. Private email doesn't benefit others in our circle; so that's last resort.)

So here we begin... First, it can't hurt to devour some more Campbell, because Campbell is an ally too.

"If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's." - Joseph Campbell

I owe a huge thank you to a few screenwriting books for re-reminding me of Campbell--although I'll be upfront and say that most script-writing tomes don't address the power of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey in terms our own journey. (I have two characters in a 'story' I'm writing in the film biz, so it's been part of my research). Wildly enough, screenwriting books keep dropping in my lap--for instance, a publicist just sent along "Riding the Alligator: Strategies for a career in screenplay writing" (still reading, so neutral so far). All these screenwriting how-to's praise Campbell--a lot.

So when I stumbled into the philosophy section of the bookstore a week or so ago, I decided to skim An Open Life, an edited conversation based on a series of interviews conducted between 1975 and 1985 with Joseph Campbell and Michael Toms as I wanted to get back to the source, rather than reading 2nd and 3rd-hand interpretations (it's been six years since I read Campbell).

The beauty of the book, An Open Life, is it is written decades after his ground-breaking The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and so he's had the benefit of time to reflect and re-consider what he's researched and shared.

After an evening of reading a few other books on myth and mystery at the bookstore, as I headed with my mother back towards her car in the parking lot, and the vanity license plate, GUIDED winked from the first stall. (Really, I don't make this stuff up.)

I think that's the crux of what Campbell is trying to say about following the clues in this passage, and that once you do heed the Herald you'll feel GUIDED one step at a time into the Unknown:

Campbell: [Answering interviewer's question on the Eastern guru-disciple model, Campbell says that it's not necessarily culturally appropriate in the West and gives a Holy Grail example, paraphrasing from La Queste del Saint Graal.] "They were seated at King Arthur's roundtable when The Grail appeared "carried by angelic miracle, covered, however by a cloth. Everyone was in rapture and then it withdrew. Arthur's nephew Gawain stood up and said, "I propose a vow. I propose that we should all go in pursuit of this Grail to behold it unveiled." . . ."They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the forest that he had chosen where there was no path and where it was darkest." Now, if there's a way or path, it's someone else's way; and the guru has a path for you. He knows where you are on it. He knows where he is on it, namely, way ahead. And all you can do is get to be as great as he is. This is a continuation of the dependency of childhood; maturity consists in outgrowing that and becoming your own authority for your life. And this quest for the unknown seems so romantic to Oriental people. What is unknown is the fulfillment of your own unique life, the likes of which has never existed on the earth. And you are the only one who can do it. People can give you clues how to fall down and how to stand up; but when to fall and when to stand, and when you are falling and when you are standing up, this only you can know."

Interviewer Michael Toms paraphrases elements of the Hero and the Call, and mentions there's a chapter in Hero with a Thousand Faces entitled "Refusal of the Call", "you talk about how we often follow society, and with the Call the reverse is what's more appropriate."Campbell [Wee snippet, much longer reply including that it is certainly possible to live a noble life "in the village compound", as well, if no Call comes]. On the other hand, if the Call is whispering: "But if a person has had the sense of the Call--the feeling that there's an adventure for him--and if he doesn't follow that, but remains in the society because it's safe and secure, then life dries up.... If you have the guts to follow the risk, however, life opens, opens, opens up all along the line... And just like in Dickens' novel, little accidental meetings and so forth turn out to be main features in the plot, so in your life. And what seems to have been mistakes at the time, turn out to be directive crises. And then he asks: "Who wrote this novel?".... The secure way is really the insecure way and the way in which the richness of the quest accumulates is the right way."

Interviewer, Michael Toms: "Joseph, in that same chapter on the Call, you wrote: "The myths and folk tales of the whole world make clear that the refusal [of the Call] is essentially a refusal to give up what one takes to be one's own interest." And then you go on to talk about how we get fixed in our own security and our own ideals and are reluctant to see them change."

Campbell: "There's a kind of regular morphology and inevitable sequence of experiences if you start out to follow your adventure. I don't care whether it's in economics, in art, or just in play. There's the sense of the potential that opens out before you. And you have no idea how to achieve it; you start out into the dark. Then, strange little help-mates come along, frequently represented by little fairy spirits or the little gnomes, who just give you clues, and these open out. Then there is the sense of danger you always run into--really deep peril--because no one has gone this way before. And the winds blow, and you're in a forest of darkness very often and terror strikes you."

Interviewer: "So often we see those dark places as huge problems rather than as opportunities. What does mythology have to say about that?"

Campbell: "Well, mythology tells us that where you stumble, there your treasure is.... where it seems most challenging lies the greatest invitation to find deeper and greater powers in ourselves.

Toynbee speaks of challenge and response, and every culture and individual runs into these challenges. If the power to respond fails, then that's the end. But where the power to respond succeeds, there comes a new amplification of life and consciousness.

When I wrote about the Call forty years ago [published 1949], I was writing out of what I had read. Now that I've lived it, I know it's correct. And that's how it turned out. I mean, it's valid. These mythic clues work."

[Later interviewer Toms asks about the irrationality of following this sort of Call:] Campbell: "This is irrational. That's the point. All compassion, all sympathy, is irrational. Love is irrational. The rational is always stressing I--thou opposites. The mind is in the world of separateness and angular structures. It's a world put together in a way to be calculated. Compassion, love--these jump mathematics."

p.s. The cited chapter "The Refusal of the Call" starts off using King Minos, who built the labyrinth in an attempt to contain his shadow--here the Ego refusing to surrender, as an example of refusing the call, which was projected as a monster, the Minotaur. It's an example of Carl Jung's statement, "When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate." Your demons, and monsters, refusals and aversions, become writ large, projected on-screen 'out there':

"The divinity itself became his terror; for, obviously, if one is oneself one's god, then God himself, the will of God, the power that would destroy one's egocentric system, becomes a monster." - Campbell

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears / I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Another writer on a philosophy Wiki aptly interpreted this chapter further, and shares: "An unanswered call makes the would-be hero a victim now needing to be saved by a hero. This is an interesting psychological point made by Campbell. Our need to be saved and desire and victimization are actually the result of our own failure to answer the calls presented to us, a failure to recognize the Herald in our midst. But we express this as victimization, or the need to be saved. What a tangled web we weave when we refuse the call. [My note: could explain over-emphasis on Messianic/Savior and Superhero plotlines, rather than on self-mastery.] King Minos is given as an example: whatever house he builds will be a house of death, always creating new problems to be solved by a hero."

I've spent effort to dilute the spark of my ideas to appeal to executives' conceptions of what is blockbuster!! mass! appeal! No more! So I'm very encouraged by these indie trends. Congrats to Wiley and his team for raising $24, 221 for their game.

Anyway, you may also enjoy scouring Kickstarter projects for allies, inspiration, and fun yourselves.

"Premise: There are hundreds small worlds orbiting a flying temple. Like islands, these small worlds often have strange cultures and unique problems. Whenever the people have a conflict that cannot be resolved on their own, they send letters to the temple requesting assistance. The temple sends young monks on a pilgrimage across the universe responding to a stack of letters one at a time. Their goal is to leave each world with less trouble than when they arrived." - Daniel Solis

“The only way you can tell the difference between disaster and opportunity is to decide to make an opportunity out of every event.” - John T. Unger

In last few days, I've heard several inspiring true stories of disaster and adversity overcome through surrender and grace. In no particular order...

Bob Doyle shares his story in this 15-minute video via Sonia Ricotti's site, Unsinkable. "I felt like a complete loser.... To be someone who wants to make a difference in the world that wants to give up--talk about being knocked down." / "If you can give it up to the Universe, you're life can change." / "I'm just going to have fun with this, I'm going to follow whatever comes up [as far as intuitive nudges]."

"My good friend (and bestselling author) Sonia Ricotti went through a NASTY phase herself. A potentially deadly blood clot shattered her health. Financial devastation stole her lifestyle and home out from under her. An important relationship ended (which, to make matters worse, involved an alcoholic)...all of it hitting her AT ONCE. Something like that could destroy most people, but Sonia knew what to do and did it in style... She bounced back on a grand scale... and rebuilt a thriving business and a beautiful life." - from an email by Joe Vitale

"Want to hear the story of how I created my first product while homeless, crying, and living in my car, out of a K-Mart parking lot in the slums of South Philadelphia? And how I leveraged my blog to pull me out of homelessness?" - Ash Ambirge

John Unger's third disaster was "having the roof of his studio cave in while he was standing on top of it, which nearly brought him to bankruptcy but ended up as the catalyst for the full-time art career he has now." - Chris Guillebeau interview with John Unger / Then John shares: "Part of my resilience is that I know from experience that just because it seems like the apocalypse, it doesn’t mean tomorrow isn’t coming. I figure that the world ends every second, and it starts over the very next second. I’ve seen the end of the world so many times I’m just not impressed by it anymore." / And another gem: "In fact, one of my favorite lines about how I started my art career is “I did it with nothing, because nothing is free.”"

I'm sharing these stories because I realize there a ridiculous amount of stigma and shame around job loss, business and financial "failure" (particularly in the success-frantic USA) that it's time to directly confront that failure/success see-saw duality that can get us fixated (and stuck). Failure?... whatever--it's merely an inflection point in a very very amazing process called Infinity. (btw, I adore James Carse way of looking at Life as an Infinite Game.)

My first brush with disaster was when my Dad died fairly suddenly two weeks before my high school prom. It's one thing to deal with emotionally (and I touched on that previously in Father's Day posts), but it was also a financial ruin for our family. My Mom had no income source--other than social security widow's benefits, and no marketable skills. Zero life insurance. Three kids, and I was the oldest. I managed to graduate college with zero debt and zero student loans from a private university (read: private=expensive) by working part-time (first job ever), qualifying for merit scholarships, and jumping at the right time at the right place (the state was pouring resources to any student whom wished to study computer engineering when I was second semester sophomore--so I simply switched my degree from computer science to computer engineering even though it meant losing credits and going to summer school to catch up).

I believe I dealt with that disaster and also with the post-tsunami "post-traumatic growth" opportunity fairly well (considering) because both felt like random, outside events out of my control. Surely it wasn't my fault that my Dad died when he did. It wasn't my fault that a tidal wave formed at the exact minute we were vacationing on an island shore in Thailand.

Yet, if we lose a job, or bankrupt our business venture, or get mixed up with sabotaging romantic/business partners and everything goes to hell in a handbasket, it can feel like a thoroughly personal reflection and assessment of our unworthiness (or our stupidity or insert-the-self-berating-term here) in comparison to natural disaster or an accident. Those times are when I've found it hardest to recover since I tend to focus far too long on, "Oh no, this is all my fault."

And, to be perfectly honest, when it isn't a wild natural disaster, allies are few and far between. Mostly, their refrain goes something like, "I told you so." Plus the entire universe seems to agree that it is so totally your fault and you are the duddiest dud in the entire galaxy--that is, until you stop that b.s. In other words, get over yourself--it's all part and parcel of process of your unfolding myth.

Pretty much the Ego is always vying to find some identity to affix to, and "poor me" works just as swell as "rock star me." (Neither are true.)

Anyhow, without further ado, here's another graceful way to look at "failure" that one rarely sees mention of in the risk-averse public sphere from former vice-president of Facebook; this is an excerpt from Chamath Palihapitiya's final email to his troops as he left to start his own venture fund:

"don’t ignore that which you don’t immediately understand and keep pushing to evolve faster than what people expect. it can create unease at times but its our only path to long term relevance.

speak the truth. its too easy to “manage” – upwards, sideways, downwards and be rewarded for it. this is death. speak candidly especially when it means it won’t be well received. respect the person but don’t let bad ideas go unchallenged.

their is more valor in failure than success. success is hard to define and hard to isolate root causes when it happens. its rare to learn much of anything from success except to conflate luck and skill, but you learn tons in failure. take enough risks that you continue to fail… and celebrate those so that it becomes the battle scars you talk about when you do eventually succeed." - Former VP Facebook, Chamatch Palihapitiya

p.s.PLAY as LIFE is an INFINITE GAME... Join us on Encanto monthly... more unfurling on July 1st when pricing goes up slightly (new and current subscribers by July 1st are locked into their original contribution amounts).

Jun 05, 2011

Great, let's play along with that. Could I put it to good use? What would I do? (The original headline/subject line was "About the Donation.")

What would you do?

And, being my birthday (not today--that day), I thought I'd check out the randomdaily Abraham quote for a year-long emphasis to embody:

"What anyone else has or does not have has nothing to do with you. The only thing that affects your experience is the way you utilize the Non-Physical Energy with your thought. Your abundance or lack of it in your experience has nothing to do with what anybody else is doing or having. It has only to do with your perspective. It has only to do with your offering of thought. If you want your fortunes to shift, you have to begin telling a different story."-- Abraham excerpted from the book "Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth & Happiness"

The "About the Donation" offering of $650,000 email read (deleted the phone number in the signature):

Hi,

Sorry I haven't gotten back with you, daily activities has kept me busy with work as a private air charter service consultant. I contacted you on the internet while looking to support a non profit charity, rescue group or a social worker and I am proud with the good work you do and happy to know that my sponsorship money goes directly to a good use.

I am making these donations because the economic downturn has created seemingly insurmountable challenges for nonprofits - organizations that rely on the generosity of others for their financial viability. I know that is is a critical time for nonprofit organizations.

I am making a cash donation of Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars which I inherited from my late grandfather who was an industrialist and international businessman. My late grandfather's heart was as big as all outdoors. It was from him that I learned the greatest joy in life comes from giving, not from receiving. I trust that you are reliable, trustworthy , compassionate in order to handle these donations for a good cause.

Let me know how you can make use of the funds.

Regards,

John Hamilton

Now my response to the correspondence, which I wrote off the top of my head without thinking and analyzing and agonizing about it too much--heck this window of opportunity may not be around forever, so I responded promptly (in the new myth blog, not to the spammed email):

Dear Mr. Hamilton,

Thank you so much for your offer. I am sorry to hear about your grandfather's passing, and my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family at this time.

I obviously am not familiar with your intentions nor your late grandfathers. But I will tell you want I have in mind.

I will locate a fiscal agent in order to filter the donation through, and it can be a tax deductible contribution for you. This is one idea for the best use of funds. As you already indicated that your grandfather loved to give, this bodes well for the idea I'm about to present to you.

We can place the $650,000 into a microloan program for culture-makers that are focused on the imprint of giving.

We can give copies of Geshe Michael Roach's book, The Diamond Cutter, to those that do not have the resources to purchase it themselves. I checked, and online, it is available at Google eBooks (may be useful as we can have a 'group' reading and see what others are highlighting) for $11.99.

There will be pop-up unconferences free and open to all (funded by sponsorships) available in different U.S. cities as well.

However, the bulk of the funds are used for microloans to artists pushing the edges of innovation in areas that are difficult to secure private or public funding precisely because they do not fit a known, established medium, genre or category.Emphasis will be given to arts and creative projects that push the edges iin terms of possibilities, i.e. telling new stories. (Using the word 'story' generically--in other words, showcasing brand-new options rather than portraying or fighting the status quo.)

Loans will range from $1000 to $75,000, in general although there could be situations where more is given, especially in a peer-to-peer arrangement. For instance, for larger loans, we may tap into a network of potential private individual loaners (they may use something simple like Loanback).

To emphasize, these are no-interest microloans and are payable back to the fund in order to keep it sustainable and circulating to new artists and organizations. This is not private equity, and no one takes a stake or stock in the ventures that are given loans. Neither are these donations. Part of the intent of making these "loans" rather than donations is that the artist/collective/company is committed to making a longer-term viable venture, rather than a one-off project (ala Kickstarter), and are in need of a modest amount of startup capital.

Of course, this model is really rather flexible and not set in stone as we are in the conception phases, and would welcome your feedback as we move forward with your grant of $650,000.

Thank you so much for your generosity,

Evelyn Rodriguez

p.s. This is not copyrighted. No rights reserved--please take this idea, and spread it like wildflowers. You are welcome to implement this idea. The more the merrier. Never can have too many microloan programs for cultural innovation, and renaissances and such.